AUSTIN, Texas — After six of his election bills died in the Texas House last session, state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, has refiled all of them, plus one more.

What You Need To Know

  • Bettencourt’s called his package of bills Integrity Seven, and it includes bills to address mistakes during Harris County's elections

  • Other parts of the proposed legislation would create an external election audit process, require election results to be reported no more than 24 hours after polls close and increase penalties for failure to deliver election supplies

  • Bettencourt’s new bill—SB511—would ban counties from funding the mailing of voter registration cards, something Attorney General Ken Paxton sued multiple Texas counties for doing this year

  • Bettencourt is confident his bills will make it through the legislative process

“These are important bills that came from actual examples of what not to do out in the field,” he said.

He’s called his package of bills Integrity Seven, and it includes bills to address mistakes during Harris County's elections. Harris County makes up a portion of Bettencourt’s district. Other parts of the proposed legislation would create an external election audit process, require election results to be reported no more than 24 hours after polls close and increase penalties for failure to deliver election supplies.

“The one thing I would be concerned about slightly is the ability that some of the bills give to the secretary of state or the attorney general to directly involve themselves in more or less an unsolicited way in the electoral process at the county level,” said Mark Jones, a Rice University professor of political science.

Jones said the original package of bills didn't have too many forms of voter suppression, but Bettencourt’s new bill—SB511—would ban counties from funding the mailing of voter registration cards, something Attorney General Ken Paxton sued multiple Texas counties for doing this year.

“This is really, let’s don’t waste money, where government decides who to mail unsolicited applications to and who not to mail,” said Bettencourt.

There was a record 18 million registered voters in Texas this last election cycle, but Austin Democratic Rep. John Bucy hopes his proposed legislation encourages more. His proposed bills include efforts to expand door-to-door campaigning and create more forms of voter ID.

“Accepting student IDs from our private and public universities just makes a lot of sense. Looking at tribal IDs, which are already government-sanctioned IDs, and allowing them makes a lot of sense. I don’t know why anybody in elected office would want to make it harder for people to vote,” said Bucy.

San Antonio Democratic Sen. José Menéndez says convenience is a part of ballot accessibility. He refiled a bill to require at least one polling place on college campuses.

“Many of these campuses are in communities in the middle neighborhoods. And so it just makes sense to me that if you have a concentration of people that you would want to have an election site, a polling site,” said Menéndez.

In September, some North Texas Republicans declared there were too many college campus polling locations and petitioned to have them removed by the Tarrant County Commission, but that initiative failed.

“I don’t think that the Republican Senate is going to pass legislation that effectively requires counties to locate polling places on college campuses,” said Jones.

Bettencourt says his colleagues are focused on restoring voter confidence in elections.

“That goes a long way to helping people believe the results in the election. So that’s really what the integrity seven is really all about,” he said.

Bettencourt is confident his bills will make it through the legislative process this time.